


It Never Troubles the Wolf

by cuddlesome



Series: Reylo Monster Week [5]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Alternate Universe, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, I hope you like big paragraph breaks for pseudo-poeticism, Kylo Ren insulting and waxing poetic about Rey in turns, Swearing, Werewolves, because that is his modus operandi, mild body horror, spiritual successor to reylo monster week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-08-18 20:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20198017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddlesome/pseuds/cuddlesome
Summary: Rey is cursed. Soon Kylo will be, too.





	It Never Troubles the Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me quoting Virgil in the title because I couldn't think of anything cleverer. I love reylo and werewolves. Hopefully that comes through in this piece.
> 
> Please note Ahch-To canonically doesn't have any moons but shhh.

She’s a monster, the real kind, the sort of evil thing that snatches men and women and children from their beds and gobbles them up whole.

He sees her true nature in her mind on Starkiller. Well, no, seeing it alone isn’t enough for him. He has to rip the information free from the grimy, rusty inner workings of her mind the same way she’d rip an especially valuable piece of scrap from a star destroyer. Holding it in front of her, he taunts without mercy.

Creature in a mask, she snaps at him, as if that’s supposed to hurt, as if his master hasn’t called him worse. Creature in a young woman’s body, he replies, and it does hurt her because she doesn’t want to think of herself that way. So alike, so different, the two of them.

Both hiding what they really are deep inside, he doesn’t say.

She’s nothing like him, she says, because of course she does.

He’s tempted to re-board the Finalizer and direct it to the nearest moon just to satisfy some sort of perverse curiosity. Holding her in his arms while he observes her transformation wouldn’t be advisable, of course. Better to chain her up.

Some part of him that still has a scholar’s mind, the part that collected ancient writing materials and studied the sacred texts, is more fascinated than disgusted with her. Werewolves are an uncommon sight outside of holos. With so many types of bodies spread across the galaxy, it’s anyone’s guess how the victim will turn out when the illness takes effect.

The thought is swept away when she turns his mind probe around on him and shoves it deep in his brain.

Cur. Mongrel. Bitch.

He hopes he is only imagining the extra sharpness to her teeth and fingernails, but he probably isn’t.

Can she smell his fear? As his secrets spill from her mouth he knows he reeks of it.

Who the hell does she think she is? (No one, and she’d be right.)

She fights like a beast long before she turns into one. Teeth bared, snarling, hissing, drowning out the distant screams of fighters and the delicate fizzle-pop of snowflakes landing on their lightsabers.

There aren’t any bites or claw marks, not yet. He’s sure if she ever got the opportunity, the scar she left on his face would seem like a lothcat scratch by comparison.

It isn’t until she’s with Skywalker that he sees her for what she is. Their bond parts the curtains on the frankly disgusting display. Bones snapping into unnatural positions, muscles tearing, fur sprouting from every pore. She snarls at him with her elongated jaw.

Finally he can no longer watch. It’s too sickening. He focuses on a squadron of stormtroopers in the hangar, trying to imagine their commands to drown out the human cries turning lupine.

When he looks down, he blinks. She’s not as big as he thought she’d be, barely wriggled out of her clothes, covered in sandy fur and panting through her mouth, still twitching.

He’s overcome with the most absurd desire to comfort her. He doesn’t, of course, but the impulse still gives him pause.

That same impulse overwhelms him when she stops moving and starts whimpering and whining and generally sounding like a kath hound pup with a wounded leg that Ben Solo had patched up once upon a time.

Then she recovers, springing to her feet—paws—and facing him down with her pointed ears laid flat against her head.

“Rrowff! Ar rooff! Rrrrrrrrrrrrr.”

He asks her what good she thinks that will do. Her answer is more barking and no small amount of growling.

They both reason that the bond won’t allow her to attack him the same way it hadn’t allowed it before (they’re wrong, but that’s what they believe). Her snout still wrinkles as she makes ugly, threatening noises at him and the occasional snap in his direction until the Force decides to stop subjecting him to wet dog smell.

The moon cycles on whatever planet she’s on are constant. Every few days he sees her in that other form.

When she’s not acting vicious, he likes to imagine he sees embarrassment written across her unreadable features.

Once in a while, she’ll make an effort to ignore him, focusing on howling a mournful tune that makes the back of his neck prickle.

He pokes and prods and asks her leading questions as if nothing’s changed. As if she’s still capable of accusing him of being a monster.

She still barks at him, but it descends into smaller, softer woofing over time until he doesn’t even think she’s arguing with him anymore. Her tail droops when he mentions Skywalker.

“Did he tell you what happened?”

“Boof.”

It’s not even his fault when she “bites” him.

He has her curled up in his lap, fur wet but being warmed by an unseen source. He doesn’t dare to so much as breathe for fear of disturbing her.

And then Luke ruins everything just like he always does.

“Stop!”

He reaches for her with his bare hand intending to—what? Pet her? She’d probably hate it if he were to succeed—when Skywalker startles her awake.

Maybe it’s instinct, maybe it’s what she believes to be a threat of violence. Whatever it is, teeth snag in his skin and shred it.

She’s instantly apologetic—“Yip!”—and he takes some level of comfort in how the last he sees of the creature is her turning her snarl on Luke.

He studies the place where her fangs tore across the back of his hand for a long time. Blood pools on the floor in front of his altar to his grandfather.

Does it count if it’s an accident?

Yes.

Hux knows.

Had Snoke told him? It’s possible. His master has been increasingly frustrated with him as of late.

He can see the recognition flicker through those cold eyes, feel the cogs turning in his mind. He should kill him right then and there but he doesn’t because he has a slim hope that Snoke won’t betray him.

During the throes of his transformation on Endor after being dumped by the First Order, that hope no longer exists.

Suffering. Organs melt into hot goo. Skin tearing. It’s as if he’s feeling the sensation of the hundreds of fiery deaths on Starkiller all over again.

Despite most of his focus being centered on his own suffering, he finds it in his heart to feel sorry for Rey. She’s experienced this for a lifetime. He knows. He’d seen her memories as a child. Poor thing.

No one had saved her and no one’s going to save him.

He’s wrong. As usual.

She comes for him when he’s mostly-but-not-yet-fully wild.

He’s at her mercy now. Possessing a gigantic, powerful form doesn’t mean anything without the understanding of how its mechanics work. It’s his teenage years all over again.

But. Even. Hairier. Ugh.

She carries herself with easy grace he doesn’t know that he appreciated before.

He can’t help but try to fight with her; something in his blood or maybe the moon tells him to. Lightsaber training doesn’t prepare him for the combat of tooth and claw.

Excuses, excuses.

She wins with ease that would be insulting if he didn’t expect it, and all without spilling a drop of blood.

The bruising from getting knocked on his back again kriffing hurts, though.

They’re still naked when they turn back. It’s skin-to-skin contact on the _Falcon_ as they’re pulled out of range of moonlight.

He doesn’t comment and neither does she, so he’s confident he can pull her closer and get away with it. He gets a growl and a playful nip to his scarred throat for his trouble.


End file.
